San Francisco City Council passed a resolution against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on July 21st in a much planned and clandestine way and evaded the questions from Indian community. However resolution itself has appalling and unverified points which is truly detrimental to democracy. The resolution was an orchestrated propaganda by the organizations that must have planned long ago, for the council to read out their unverified allegations which cannot sustain in courts. City should know that India passed the Citizenship amendment Bill with 2/3rd Majority in both houses of parliament and well within constitutional framework. India’s constitution is the largest written document on planet.

Factually wrong information on Detention Centers

Firstly, How did the council come to the conclusion that India’s CAA has imprisoned thousands of Dalits, Gays, women and Muslims in detention centers? This is one of the biggest allegations attributed to India’s CAA. While the intent of the Act is to provide citizenship to the persecuted Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsi and Jains who are refugees living in India before Dec31st 2014 and most of the Hindu refugees are Dalits who could benefit using this citizenship act; it is rather absurd and utter nonsense to have the unverifiable aspects provided by a bunch of  organizations and influence the council. Council failed to verify the facts and details from the nearest Indian Consulate who are ready to provide details on the aspects. Passing a resolution by a City Council is rather out of its jurisdiction. City must answer the question with complete evidence on the detention centers opened during 2014 until 2020. How does CAA law imprison when the aim of the act is to provide citizenship to persecuted refugees from India’s hostile nations? There is a notion that has been built that India discriminates Muslims in granting citizenship belonging to hostile nations which is untrue. India from 2014 until 2018 has granted citizenship to 650 Muslims belonging to Pakistan under Citizenship Act of 1955. Apart from this, the City Council did not take cognizance of the Supreme Court of India and perhaps did not know that Section 377 decriminalizes Homo Sexuals in India.

Thousands of people demonstrated in support of CAA in Delhi

Goebbels Propaganda on NRC and NPR

Secondly, the City Council must provide evidence to support the resolution related to the National Register of Citizens (NRC). When the NRC itself is not passed by parliament and the draft for NRC is not even made by the cabinet nor discussed the blueprint of the NRC with the public, How can the city council include the factually incorrect information in their resolution? This is one of the biggest blunder that City Council blindly went ahead on behest of the foreign Muslim organizations. Apart from this, the resolution discussed and opposed the National Population Register (NPR). Does the City Council understand what NPR is? NPR is a Census that India does every 10 years mandated by the constitution of India. Just like the US constitution requires and encourages everyone to provide the details in Census 2020. Thus, it appears that the City Council passed a resolution that doesn’t hold the legal aspects and factually incorrect information to the public of San Francisco.

Distorting the intent of CAA

Thirdly, It is the responsibility for the City Council to answer a simple question based on the resolution that says “poised to put citizenships of millions into question, but Muslims alone would bear the indignities and consequences of potential statelessness”, As the law came into effect from January 10th 2020 and has been 7 months, Can City Council able to provide a factual document that correlate the above statement with the number of Muslim Citizens losing their citizenship? If so, How will they lose their citizenship based on CAA? Does the City Council ever have a chance to look into the Act published in Gazette. While, the City says it is poised to pin point the law but it undermined the judicial system of India. It will be a contempt of Court and India can raise this point in the Supreme Court of India which could lead to permanent ban of City Council members entering India and the Organizations involved. This allegation is unacceptable.

TimesNow Opinion poll show an overwhelming 71% support the CAA

Maligning and vilifying Hindu Community

Fourthly, On the lines of CAA , City has referred and maligned the whole Hindu community as Hindu hardliners and berated them with racist rants by council. Does the council have any right to malign the Hindu community by passing a resolution? Hindu community would like to seek answers from the council whether City council can consider to pass a resolution on Kashmiri Hindu Pandits Genocide happened in 1990? Hindus in Kashmir were massacred by the Islamic extremists and thousands were killed and  as many as half a million had to exodus to Jammu and other parts of India. 

Perhaps, and to be very specific, these resolutions don’t have any impact on India. These city councils neither have jurisdiction to pass any dictum against a sovereign republic nor ability to judge a law enacted by Parliament of the largest democracy in the world. City Councils and other Non Profit organizations are spending huge amounts of money and investing so much time to malign Indian government that will go into drain. These resolutions have ABSOLUTELY zero impact as there are no General Elections in India unlike US elections. Thus, the resolution passed by the city council is immature with distorted information and misled the public of San Francisco.

Finally, the questions apply to all five other Democrat Controlled City Councils.

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